President Obama congratulates president-elect of Mexico

President Barack Obama telephoned the president-elect of Mexico today to extend congratulations amid a change in power south of the border that has stirred concern among some U.S. officials.

The White House said Obama and newly-elected President Enrique Peña Nieto “reaffirmed the close bilateral partnership the United States and Mexico enjoy based on mutual respect, shared responsibility, and the deep connections between our people“during their telephone conversation.

Details were not included in the White House statement that followed the two leaders’ call.

Obama “reiterated his commitment to working in partnership with Mexico, and looks forward to advancing common goals, including promoting democracy, economic prosperity and security in the region and around the globe, in the coming years,” the White House statement said.

Rep. Michael McCaul, an Austin Republican chairing oversight and investigations for the House Committee on Homeland Security, voiced concerns that the new leadership in Mexico might return to past policies of ignoring the operations of drug cartels.

While Pena Nieto has publicly stated that “he is committed to the security of his country against the drug cartels, I am hopeful that he will not return to the PRI party of the past which was corrupt and had a history of turning a blind eye to the drug cartels,” said McCaul, a former federal prosecutor.

“ I oppose any negotiated settlement with the cartels,” McCaul emphasized.

The lawmaker said he was pleased that Pena Nieto had hired General Oscar Naranjo, the former police chief in Colombia who is credited with capturing many of that country’s drug kingpins, as a top security advisor.

Rep. Gene Green, a Houston Democrat who has participated in U.S.-Mexico parliamentary exchanges, said he hoped the new government “will work to strengthen the close ties between our nations, which are critical for the economy and security of our state.”

Green said he hoped Mexico’s government also would “take assertive action to ending the drug-related violence that has kills thousands in Mexico in recent years,” adding: “Texas and Mexico have centuries of shared history and success in Mexico is important to Texas and our nation.”

Andrew Selee, director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., forecast that the change in power from President Felipe Calderon “will make little difference for the U.S.-Mexico relationship” because the neighboring nations are “deeply interdependent.”

Selee downplayed the risk that Mexico’s new government would go easier on drug cartels than Calderon’s war on gangs that has seen more than 56,000 security personnel and civilians killed over the last six years.

“There have been suspicions that the PRI would renew its old ways in dealing with drug traffickers and jettison the growing security cooperation relationship with the United States,” Selee said. “This seems unlikely to happen, and the new government will almost certainly want to deepen cooperation against drug traffickers.”

That in turn will deepen reliance on the United States, Selee said.

“It cannot do that without extensive intelligence sharing, equipment and training from the U.S. government,” Selee said.

“We are likely to see cooperation against trafficking organizations deepen in the coming years as the new government tries to get control of areas in the north and along the coasts where criminal groups have established themselves,” Selee said. “The criminal groups are now too big to be dealt with through negotiations and deals as the PRI did in the 1980s and 1990s.”

George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William and Mary, said Mexico’s president-elect “wants to strengthen cooperation with the U.S. not only because of the violence along the border and elsewhere in his country, but because of his concern about illegal migrants pouring into Mexico through Guatemala, which is a failed state.”